


Among the Fields of Gold

by ShortInsomniac98



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 11 years later, Crowley (Good Omens) Has PTSD, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Tea, going for a walk, good husband aziraphale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 22:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18678991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShortInsomniac98/pseuds/ShortInsomniac98
Summary: Crowley has his good days, and he has his bad days. He still remembers the apocalypse, eleven years ago now, like it was yesterday, and sometimes it causes some unnecessary fears to resurface. Aziraphale helps in any way he can, like making him tea and going for walks with him. Based on an anonymous request for a fic based on "Fields of Gold," as covered by Celtic Woman.





	Among the Fields of Gold

Eleven more years had come and gone, and still the world hadn’t ended.  Crowley was certain it would have by now.  He thought about it on certain evenings, as the sun was going down and a certain color scheme reemerged, or when he heard Aziraphale humming a strain of some hornpipe or other from the  _Water Music_  as he sat reading in the library.  It caused a lot of unnecessary anxiety, the constant anticipation of the end.

Adam had stopped it from coming, Aziraphale would always remind him.  It was okay.  And he tried to tell himself that during particularly bad storms, too, when lightning flashed so intensely he thought he could see where it struck down.  They weren’t coming for him, though, he was certain at this point.  His punishment was complete and utter abandonment, and he was fine with that.  Still, it worried him not to be in the know, as it were.  He never knew when the real end might come, if they might change their minds and decide the word of a small boy, regardless of who he was, meant nothing at all and they wanted the end after all.

This particular afternoon, as Crowley sat in the little window seat of the cottage, staring out across the fields, his chin on his knees and his breathing slow, Aziraphale noticed something was troubling him.

“What’s the matter, Crowley?” he asked, setting a cup of tea in front of him as he made his way across the room to his chair in the corner.

Crowley unfolded himself to sit more comfortably, and he looked down at the teacup in front of him. Little wisps of steam floated off its deep brown surface and disappeared.  He touched the handle, and instantly the tea cooled to the proper temperature, it lightened in color, and sweetened itself, and he brought it to his lips to take a small sip.

“Where do you think he is now?” he asked Aziraphale after a moment.

“Still in Tadfield, I suppose,” Aziraphale answered.  “Why do you ask?”

“You think he remembers?”

“I’m sure he does.”

“How old is he now?”

“Early twenties, I think,” said Aziraphale.  “An adult now.”

“What do you think he’s done with himself?” Crowley asked.

“Haven’t the slightest,” Aziraphale said with a smile, taking a sip of his own tea.  “I’d like to think he’s happy.  Good job, interesting pastimes, maybe a spouse.”

“Yeah,” Crowley murmured and looked out the window again.

“How are you today?” Aziraphale asked, his brow furrowed.  “Are you okay?  Really?”

“I dunno,” said Crowley. “It’s been eleven years and everything is fine, I know.  I get that. I’m usually fine.  But some days I really do get worried that the real end’s coming, and it scares the hell out of me.”

“If it was, and if I knew, I would tell you.  I promise,” said Aziraphale.

“I know.”

“What do you say we go for a walk?  Hm?” he asked, standing and crossing the room to where Crowley sat cross-legged in the window seat.

Crowley nodded, and leaving his tea, he took Aziraphale’s hand which was extended to him.

* * *

The Garden of Eden is long gone, but on that evening, as on many others, Crowley found himself thinking that South Downs was perhaps as close as he would ever get to that again. The natural beauty of the fields and the hills where they walked now was breathtaking.  That is, they would have been, if Crowley had need for breathing. And a ways away, there were fruit trees, among which he sometimes liked to wander.

“Here is good,” Aziraphale said, stopping amidst an expanse of golden brown grass.

“Here is good for what?” Crowley asked.

“It’s just,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head, “ _good_. You know what I mean?”

Crowley nodded slowly. “Yeah.  I think I do.”

Aziraphale reached out then, and he took Crowley’s hand, and he sat down in the grass, bringing Crowley slowly down with him to sit beside him.  They were silent for some time, just looking out over the tall yellowed grass in the slowly fading light.  The sound of a bird singing before roost came over a great distance from the orchards, but Crowley heard it, and he smiled.  He tried not to, but he smiled.  He smiled because though there might not always be birds and sunsets and grass and fields and hills and trees.  There might not always be the chalk and the dirt and the water.  There might not always be the cottage, or even South Downs, or even England at all.  But he would remember them.  He would always remember this moment, as he remembered every moment that came before.

Somehow he knew, so would Aziraphale, because he had been there, too, from the beginning, and always would be, even once the fields and the birds and the cottage and England were gone.  Aziraphale would always be close by, Crowley was certain of it, because he always had been.


End file.
